


It Doesn't Feel Like Enough

by plutosrose



Series: lightning only struck once [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Aang (Avatar), F/M, Katara discovers how to bloodbend, Murder, References to Genocide, Resistance, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 10:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24968035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutosrose/pseuds/plutosrose
Summary: After the other soldiers were restrained, Sokka took a deep breath. “Self-defense, only. We’re not Fire Nation. We don’t kill like they do.”--With Aang gone, his friends do what they can to strike at the heart of the Fire Nation.
Relationships: Mild Katara/Zuko, mild Sokka/Suki
Series: lightning only struck once [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1811392
Comments: 15
Kudos: 96





	It Doesn't Feel Like Enough

Seeing Aang fall back down to earth was straight out of Katara’s nightmares. 

And she’d seen a lot in her life, a life that had been defined by war and pain and heartbreak and tragedy. But this was different. In a way, it was almost worse than seeing the firebender kill her mother. Her mother had defined hope in her own life, but she hadn’t defined hope for the entire world. 

She couldn’t breathe. Aang wasn’t breathing. 

Even the Dai Li, who had fought in Azula’s name, were powerless when it came to the sight of the Avatar, a twelve-year-old boy, lying motionless in her arms. It was only Iroh’s voice, cutting through the silence, telling her to "Get out of here, I’ll hold them off as long as I can!" that forced her into action.

Holding Aang to her side, she moved her hand carefully, the water propelling them toward the sky. Cool, night air hit her face, but the only thing that she was focused on was the gaping wound in Aang’s spine, blood seeping and staining his clothes.

“Is he--” Sokka starts as he helps Katara put Aang in Aapa’s saddle. The words were choked and hard. “Can you--”

Katara clenches her jaw. None of them, not Sokka, not Toph, nor the Earth King, had witnessed what she had. The terrifying awe of the Avatar, fully transformed, only to practically seize out of his skin when the lightning bolt hit him. And then he had fallen down, down, down to the Earth, a spirit fully grounded.

“Help me with his shirt,” she murmurs, and Sokka nods, helping her tear away the fabric, peeling it away from the blood. She coaxes the water from the Spirit Oasis out of the tiny bottle, and pressed it against Aang’s injury. 

“Is he going to be okay?” Toph asks from her position on the other side of the saddle, curled up next to the Earth King, who was nervously chewing his lip. 

From what she knew about healing, water from the Spirit Oasis could heal almost any injury, even ones that pushed someone to the brink of death. 

But they could not bring someone back who had already crossed over.

“Is it working?” Sokka asks. 

Katara could only shake her head. 

~

They bury Aang in the mountainside of the Southern Air Temple. The moment they arrive, Momo squeaks, spreads his wings, and flies off. 

“It doesn’t feel like enough for him,” Toph says, and there is silent agreement. 

Because it doesn’t.

Because Aang deserves more than he got in his short life. Deserves more than he gets in that moment, an anonymous grave on a now-anonymous mountainside. The temple has been abandoned for years, and it’s unlikely that anyone will visit. Certainly not to honor him, the way that he should be honored.

“He would understand,” Katara says, and Sokka nods. 

“Yeah, he would know...and I think he would want to be here,” Sokka adds. The Southern Air Temple is an open grave to the Air Nomad people, but even among so much tragedy and horror, there is some acknowledgement that now, Aang is home, even after the Fire Nation tried to rob him of it. 

~ 

“We can take you home if you want,” Katara offers. The question of where Appa will go is a little bit more tricky, but for the moment, the best they can do is offer to take Toph back to her home in the Earth Kingdom.

Toph waves her off. “No, I’m not going home. Are you guys going to go home?”

Sokka and Katara look at each other once and shake their heads. 

The Earth King decides that he’s going to travel the world. (“This is the first time I’ve ever been outside of Ba Sing Se, and I’m not going to waste it,” he says resolutely, despite the fact that the Fire Nation is marching closer to absolute victory and absolute control.)

“What are we going to do now?” Katara murmurs, mostly to herself, but from the knowing looks on Toph and Sokka’s faces, it was easy to tell that all she’d done was give voice to a question that they were already asking themselves.

~

It turned out that going home was not an option, at least not for Katara or Sokka. Within days of Aang’s death, they overheard two soldiers talking about how patrols outside of Northern and Southern Water Tribe territory had increased. While Aang had told them that dying in the Avatar State meant the end of the reincarnation cycle, it wasn’t clear if these soldiers knew if there would be a baby born in the Water Tribe that would be capable of bringing down the Fire Nation as it grew up.

The bar is truthfully one of the few buildings in the small town that seems to have its lights on at night, and under the cover of darkness, they track them into an alleyway. When Toph kicks the ground and traps them in a cage, Katara realizes that they have a choice. 

They could let them go.

Or they could make sure that they don’t hurt anyone again.

“How many Fire Nation ships are headed to the Northern and Southern Water Tribes?” Sokka asks them, prodding them with his boomerang. 

“Twenty,” one says, while the other swears under his breath. “Ten to the North and ten to the South. A dispatch will be going out tomorrow from a post about fifty kilometers south of here.” 

Katara makes the choice.

She brings her hands down, and the icicles that she’d formed pierce their necks, leaving them gasping wetly for breath.

There isn’t time for a conversation about the appropriateness of making the choice for the group, because there are voices outside of the alleyway, coming closer now. 

It’s time to go.

~ 

“You can’t do that, Katara. We didn’t decide that.”

“They deserved it, Sokka.”

“It’s not about what they deserve or don’t deserve. We need to think about our next move. We can’t have the Fire Nation on us.”

“They’re not even chasing us anymore because Aang is--”

“--and you don’t think they won’t try to come after us now?” 

“Both of you need to shut up!” Toph says suddenly, hanging on to the edge of the saddle tightly. Both Katara and Sokka look at her. 

“Sokka’s right, we need a plan. We had one, before. Aang had to learn all four elements. There’s no Aang to learn the elements now. But we also can’t be afraid to...do anything to the Fire Nation that they would do to us if they had the chance.” 

Neither Sokka nor Katara are entirely satisfied that Toph has positioned herself directly in the center of their argument, but realization that she’s right washes over them both.

~

A plan forms, although calling it a plan might be a bit of a stretch. 

It’s created step by step, every single day, alive and evolving. 

The first thing they do is find the tower - while Sokka and Appa are flying overhead, Katara and Toph drop into the tower below. Katara moves tendrils of water up from the ocean and into the tower, tossing the Fire Nation soldiers out.

They might drown, they’re not there long enough to figure out if they do. 

Toph, for her part, warps metal underneath her hands until the tower collapses. 

Only a few days later, they find a tiny town in the northern Earth Kingdom that has been stripped bare by the Fire Nation. Each day, Earth Kingdom citizens are forced to work in the mines, and the coal that is left is taken to a nearby factory.

Under the cover of darkness, Katara freezes the pipes in the factory, causing them to burst. Toph sends giant earthy spikes through it, before twisting the metal underneath her hands. 

It’s not enough.

~

It’s another few weeks before someone dies again. This time, it’s Toph that’s responsible. 

A group of Fire Nation soldiers has recognized them, and one of the soldiers is trying to wrestle her onto a Fire Navy ship. (“Do we have any chains?” “Do you Fire Nation idiots really think that you can hold the greatest earthbender in the world?”) Toph is wriggling in the soldier’s grasp, while Katara and Sokka are still in the face of their captors. 

Toph only needs to kick the ground once to send a spiny rock through the heart of the soldier. 

He gasps, and then he dies.

~

After the other soldiers were restrained, Sokka took a deep breath. “Self-defense, only. We’re not Fire Nation. We don’t kill like they do.” 

“Even if we did,” Toph points out flatly. “Would any of them really not deserve it?”

It’s a hard question and it has no answer. 

~

Travelling within Fire Nation territory is even riskier than normal, but it feels like the natural next step. You can’t strike at the heart of the Fire Nation if you’re not really in the Fire Nation.

They steal new clothes, and Katara cuts her hair - and helps Toph do the same. Sokka has a few scraggly hairs on his face now, and he decides that he’s going to let them grow in. 

“We need new names,” Sokka says, and Katara and Toph nod. “I’ll be Lee. Katara can be Ajala and Toph you can be Ezala.”

Katara raises an eyebrow.

“Aren’t those just the names of some of the soldiers we trapped last week?” Toph asks. 

Sokka shrugs. “You have a better idea?”

~

They blow up five more factories. Two soldiers die. 

It doesn’t feel like enough.

~ 

“We need allies,” Sokka says. “People who can take on the Fire Nation. We don’t even need that many - we can take the Fire Nation during the Eclipse.”

“How are we going to send word?” Katara asks. “We were being tailed in the last town that we went through.” 

“Will they still come?” Toph asks, curling up close to the fire. “Even with Aang gone?”

“We have to try,” Sokka murmurs. “And if they don’t come---”

“--let’s not think about that,” Katara shakes her head. 

~

“Hello, Zuko here.”

The words shake all three of them out of their sleep - not that any of them slept deeply since Aang’s death.

All three of them snap to their feet. Katara coaxes the water out of the stream near where they’d pitched their tent, Toph kicks a rock out of the ground, and Sokka braces his boomerang for a throw that is indisputably aimed at Zuko’s head.

Even Appa, accustomed to one of them shushing him and forcing him to hide out of sight, bears his teeth. 

Zuko sinks to his knees. “I came here to join you.”

“Why the hell should we believe that?” Katara snaps, and the water forms an icy dagger, pointed straight at Zuko’s head.

Zuko bows low, pressing his head against the dirt. Vaguely, it occurs to Toph that he must be aware of the fact that she could kill him by moving her foot if she really thought it was necessary. 

“Because this war is wrong,” Zuko says into the dirt. “Because my father will kill so many innocent people to get what he wants.”

“He’s already killed innocent people!” Katara snaps. “Thousands of them!”

Zuko’s heart drops in his stomach. “I know.” 

“Then why did you join Azula?” she asks.

“Because I didn’t know the truth.” 

This explanation is enough for Toph and Sokka, although they remain wary of him. It is not enough for Katara. 

“You have to prove it,” she says simply.

~ 

A prison break from the Boiling Rock Prison is what Zuko settles on to prove his loyalty to their cause. It has the added bonus of possibly giving them a couple more allies. 

“We can’t take too many people,” Zuko explains. “No one has ever escaped from there.” 

Sokka cracks his knuckles. “Yeah, but I haven’t tried yet.” 

~

The next week and a half are the most nerve-wracking of Katara’s entire life. It’s too risky to move camp with Zuko and Sokka gone. Fortunately, the most they need to do is hide themselves and Appa underneath the cover of earth when a Fire Nation patrol passes through. 

Pure relief passes through Katara when they return.

~

“We rescued two Water Tribe men. We brought them back to their ship in the North.”

“That’s good, really good.”

“I saw Dad, Katara.”

Silence.

“How is he?”

“Surviving.” 

~ 

Suki was the third person that they’d rescued, and she is the one who plants the idea of the next part of their plan. 

“The Fire Nation prisons are full of people who are considered war criminals,” she says. “People who could be our allies.”

“What are you proposing?” Sokka asks, draping an arm across her shoulders. 

Suki smiles wickedly.

“Break them out.” 

The scars they get during each prison break become badges of honor. Katara shows off a long, thin scar on her arm from a burn from a fire whip. Sokka has one underneath his eye from where a soldier had tried to cut him by pressing his boomerang against his face. Suki has a burn mark on her shoulder from where fire split through her fans. Toph has one across her lip from where a rock ricocheted back toward her. 

Zuko has one on his leg now, a miscalculation breaking Earth Kingdom resistance fighters out of a prison outside Omashu. It’s a long, thin scar that matches Katara’s. 

When she smiles and says, “Look, now we match,” he smiles back, and feels like he can breathe a little easier. 

~

“Come with me,” Zuko says to Katara in the middle of the night. “I think I have a lead on something important.” 

Katara frowns and nods, and gets up to follow Zuko slightly outside of the group’s camp. “The Southern Raiders. My father mentioned a dispatch during the war meeting I went to, that, if I’m right, will be going out from a tower tonight.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Total elimination of the Southern Water Tribe.” 

Katara’s eyes widen. “They can’t - we intercepted that dispatch, and it was about patrols, it wasn’t…”

Zuko shakes his head and scrubs a hand over his face. “If Aang has reincarnated, they don’t want to leave him alive. No matter what form he might be in.” 

Katara suddenly feels sick at the idea of the Fire Nation taking a small baby from the arms of its mother. 

“We have to stop them,” Katara murmurs, and Zuko nods.

~

Katara can feel the water in the soldier’s veins.

It’s the first time that she can feel it, and in another life, perhaps, she would have been able to stop herself from trying it. 

She moves her hand delicately - with fewer flowing movements than it takes to move a stream or a river. It’s guesswork, mostly, but nothing is too hard for a waterbending master.

The soldier’s limbs jerk clumsily behind him, and he’s forced to his knees. What Katara appreciates in that moment most of all is the fact that Zuko does not tell her to stop. And does not look at her with judgment when she moves her hand up, and the soldier’s neck snaps in two.

~

They sit together the following night in front of the campfire, long after Toph, Suki, and Sokka have gone to sleep. 

Katara leans against him. Zuko hesitates before draping an arm around her. “I think I loved him,” she murmurs, furrowing her brow. “And I think he’d be ashamed of what we’ve done.”

Zuko shakes his head. “I think he’d understand.”

Katara scoffs. “You didn’t exactly know him very well.”

Zuko smiles then, and Katara smiles too. “You’re doing what you can. That’s what we’re all doing. That’s what my Uncle would say, though he’d probably also throw in a metaphor.” 

“They don’t teach Fire Princes about metaphors?”

Zuko laughs lightly. “There’s a lot they don’t teach us about.” 

~ 

Resistance fighters are filling the streets in cities and towns in the Earth Kingdom. They are in a coastal town, staying close to the ocean to meet Hakoda and his troops in a few days on more neutral ground. The news of resistance is everywhere. 

But a few stray bulletins in the town square or overheard conversations don’t really bring it home for them until a bar being frequented by Fire Nation soldiers erupts one night.

Rocks are thrown through the windows, fire meeting stone as soldiers spilled into the streets. Initially, there are only a few fighters, but more come out of their houses, taking sturdy stances and ejecting more stone from the earth at the soldiers. 

This is one of the fights they don’t get involved in - can’t get involved in, because there’s no way to contact Hakoda so close to the invasion. But they move silently to a spot in an alleyway to watch (and although no one says it outloud, to turn the tide if the resistance fighters can’t). 

Sokka is the one who notices it first.

“They’re yelling something,” he murmurs, and crouches closer to the edge of the alley. 

“For Avatar Aang!” voices ring out, and Katara grasps Zuko’s arm tightly. 

Because as much as she sometimes feels that Aang would disapprove of the things that they do, have done, and will do, he has not been forgotten. He has not died in vain. 

She doesn’t know if they will win the war, but she can hold on to that one simple fact. 

They will not let him die in vain.

**Author's Note:**

> names came from the fire nation name generator on fantastynamegenerator.com


End file.
